Businesses Lobby to Make Trump’s List of ‘Essential’ Industries
- Gun makers, coal miners, laundromats have scored additions
- States write own rules, creating patchwork of designations
A barber wears a protective mask and gloves while cutting a customer's hair at a shop in New York, on March 16.
Photographer: Angus Mordant/BloombergThis article is for subscribers only.
Pet stores are considered essential. So are landscapers. Hair salons aren’t. Neither are shops that sell books or clothes.
The Trump administration’s labeling of industries considered “essential” is quickly creating winners and losers as coronavirus shuts down swaths of the economy. It’s also setting off a lobbying frenzy among industries -- from battery makers to poultry producers -- angling to join the ranks of hospitals, supermarkets and other businesses whose continued operation has been deemed necessary.